Gun Club Coming Under Fire

Park District Staff Cites Environmental, Safety Issues

July 21, 1988|By Jody Temkin.

The Chicago Park District is taking aim at a local institution, and a direct hit could remove the 76-year-old Lincoln Park Gun Club from Lake Michigan`s shores.

Park District staff members recommended that the gun club`s permit be revoked after studying the environmental and safety issues surrounding its operation. The Park District board`s General Operations Committee is scheduled to discuss the recommendation on July 28 and pass its decision to the full board for a vote.

The first shots in this dispute were fired last week, when the gun club, which is in a high-use area at Diversey Parkway and Lake Shore Drive, received a letter from the district citing four reasons for revoking the permit.

Violations of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency water pollution control laws were the district`s primary concern. Other concerns involved the alleged lack of insurance coverage, worries over the safety of those in and around the club and the fact that the club occupies prime lakefront property.

The gun club has been quick to fire back. Members plan to appeal to the Illinois Pollution Control Board, seeking a variance to allow the club to continue discharging material into Lake Michigan with the stipulation that the club will clean up the beaches littered with plastic wads-the cups that hold the shot in the shells.

``The last three reasons (for revoking the permit) are baloney-type reasons,`` said gun club manager Edward Bishop. ``The first reason (debris in the lake) is something we`re also concerned with.``

Sportsmen shoot at targets lofted by machine over the lake. The lead shot and pieces of broken clay target then fall into the lake.

Bishop said that the club has a $30,000 insurance policy and that the district will be made aware of that.

He said safety is not a valid issue because there has not been a single gun accident in the club`s history. And, though admitting the club`s 3.15 acres occupy valuable park land, Bishop said: ``That`s not new. We`ve been here since 1912.``

The gun club maintains that the pollution problem is actually more of a litter problem, and it is willing to begin picking up the debris that washes ashore on beaches south of the club.

There are about 400 tons of lead shot resting on the bottom of Lake Michigan near the club, according to the Illinois Department of

Transportation`s Water Resources Division.

But the lead is not believed to be an ecological threat because it is mixed with other elements that make it inert, said Pat Brady, a transportation department resource analyst.

``There`s no problem with that type of lead,`` Brady said. ``It doesn`t mix with the lake.``

Even if lead isn`t a problem, other things are, the Park District contends.

``The staff has identified several areas of concern,`` said district attorney Nancy Kaszak. One of those is ``the tremendous demand for park land in that area. When they got the permit, there wasn`t as dense population there.

``There were several (environmental) things that needed to be considered. When the EPA contacted us (in a letter last March) and said they believed there were violations of state laws, we said we`d investigate. After we did, the staff recommended the permit be terminated.``

Kaszak said the Illinois EPA told the Park District that the club was violating the Clean Water Act by discharging ``unnatural sludge`` of lead shot, shell wads and clay targets into the lake.

The gun club operates independently from the Park District, paying no rent and receiving no funding, Bishop said. The skeet and trap range has 384 members, although it has never been an exclusively private club, he added. All of its facilities, including a sandwich bar, are open to the public. Members receive a discount on shooting fees. Non-members can use the club at any time, as long as they have their own guns.

Lessons and training programs also are available to non-members who want to learn about skeet and trap shooting, Bishop said.

Despite occasional complaints about the club in past years from advocacy groups such as Friends of the Parks, the park board never has voted on whether to allow the club to remain in Lincoln Park.

Rufus Taylor, club president, doesn`t like the club`s odds. ``I think our chances are fairly slim,`` he said. ``Our chances hinge on whether the people from the pollution control board are anti-gun. If they are, we don`t have a prayer. If they`re pro-gun, at least we can reason with them.``

If the gun club permit is revoked, members would have 90 days to close the doors.

``It`s a dinosaur,`` said Erma Tranter, executive director of Friends of the Parks. ``Seventy-five years ago, that area was rural. The city has changed. Our recreational habits have changed. The gun club is an anachronism, an inappropriate use of lakeshore.``

Taylor sees the club`s age as one of the reasons why it should continue to exist.

``It`s part of Chicago`s heritage,`` he said. ``I doubt we could relocate because there`s really no place you could locate a gun club today without going 30 or 40 miles out.``